Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has been increasingly used for inventory control purposes, and is finding its way into many other applications as well. Concern over privacy considerations has spurred the development of techniques to permanently disable an operational RFID tag after a certain event has occurred (for example, after a tagged product has been sold to the consumer). However, there are some applications in which it may be desirable to not activate the RFID tag until after a particular event occurs. Such applications may include circumstances in which the RFID tag's information should be protected from surreptitious reading until after the tagged device has been purchased or otherwise authorized. Some examples might be secure key distribution, retail gift cards, lottery tickets, etc.